NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL

Underdog role energized UConn

Connecticut guard Lasan Kromah cut down the net after the Huskies won the Division I men’s basketball national title on Monday night. It was the Huskies’ fourth NCAA championship since 1999.

ARLINGTON, Texas >> The Connecticut Huskies lost their coach, their teammates, their chance to play at the NCAA Tournament for a year. They were castoffs, unwanted mutts without a home, told they had no chance.

Well, look who’s woofing now.

Playing with a chip-on-their-shoulder mentality and poise down the stretch, UConn starred in the underdog role for the second time in four years, knocking off Kentucky 60-54 Monday night in North Texas.

“It feels so good to prove the world wrong,” UConn junior guard Ryan Boatright said.

It was quite a journey to get here.

UConn won a national title in 2011 behind do-it-all guard Kemba Walker. One setback after another followed.

Coach Jim Calhoun retired in 2012. Players left the program, three who transferred away and two who left for the NBA.

The Huskies were barred from the 2013 tournament for failing to meet NCAA academic standards. They scrambled to find a home after the Big East blew up, landing in the American Athletic Conference.

UConn fought its way through last season, winning 20 games despite no hope of playing in the postseason, yet still was dismissed heading into this season.

The Huskies turned a few heads with an opening nine-game winning streak, but were given little chance of making a run after stumbling late in the season. Of the 11.01 million brackets submitted on ESPN.com, only 0.3 percent picked them to win it all.

UConn continued to go against the grain of public opinion as it advanced through the bracket, beating the odds while knocking off Villanova, Iowa State, Michigan State and top-seeded Florida to reach the championship game.

Again, the Huskies were not supposed to win, told they were no match for the length and athleticism of Kentucky’s one-and-done freshmen, expected to get run over by those speedy ‘Cats.

Again, they wouldn’t listen.

Relying on its veteran leaders, UConn jumped to a big early lead, kept its composure whenever Kentucky tried to make a run and counterpunched every time the Wildcats landed a blow.

Senior Shabazz Napier took what he learned from Walker, his mentor, and became the leader who took the Huskies to a title, finishing with 22 points and six rebounds to bookend his career with national championships.

Gritty Ryan Boatright gave Kentucky fits at both ends all night, scoring 14 points while teaming with Napier to lock down the Wildcats’ heralded twins, Aaron and Andrew Harrison.

Kevin Ollie proved a more-than-able caretaker of the program Calhoun built, creating his own legacy by becoming the first coach to win a national title within two years on his first Division I job since Michigan’s Steve Fisher in 1989.

When it was over and the confetti fell, the seventh-seeded Huskies were on top of the college basketball world for the fourth time as a program.

UConn was the highest seed to win a national title since Rollie Massimino and eighth-seeded Villanova won it in 1985. The Huskies are the first team since Arizona in 1997 to win a national championship without winning a conference regular-season or tournament title.

They also won the national title without playing in the NCAA Tournament or NIT the season before, a first since North Carolina State in 1974.

“You’ve got to continue to believe,” said Napier, the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player. “We had faith in each other and we are here. We won the whole thing. We didn’t listen to any doubters. We just went out there and did what we had to do.”

UConn’s title served as a validation of sorts for Ollie. He was not an entirely popular choice to lead the Huskies when Calhoun stepped down.

Ollie played in Storrs and had a 13-year NBA career, but had never been a coach before joining Calhoun’s staff as an assistant. After two short years, he was handed the reins to one of college basketball’s most storied programs.

Ollie, 41, joined an elite group of Georgetown’s John Thompson, Arkansas’ Nolan Richardson and Kentucky’s Tubby Smith as black coaches in Division I to lead teams to a national title.

“I just wanted to come in and do this job and nobody looking at my color, just what I’m doing X’s and O’s, but most importantly the impact I’m having on young kids’ lives,” Ollie said. “I just want to coach. I want to coach at the greatest university. And I have this job and we’re national champions.”

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